Home fees and student finance for refugees and asylum seekers, 2026/27

If you have refugee status or humanitarian protection in England, you can usually pay home fees and get a tuition fee loan and maintenance loan, with no three-year wait. The same goes for section 67 leave, Calais leave, stateless leave, and leave under the Afghan and Ukraine schemes. If you are still waiting for an asylum decision, you cannot get Student Finance England support. You will usually be charged international fees unless a university chooses otherwise.

That is the short answer. The detail matters, though, because fee status is decided by a regulation with dozens of categories. One missing condition can turn a £9,790 fee into a much higher international fee, with no loan to cover it.

This guide explains what “home” and “international” fee status mean, and which statuses qualify. It covers the residence rules, the long residence route for people with limited leave, where asylum seekers stand, and what happens when your status changes mid-course. It also covers how Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland differ, and who to contact. We have written it for students, and for the teachers, social workers and volunteers who help them. Every rule links to the regulation or official guidance it comes from.

What do “home” and “international” fee status mean?

Every student at a university or college in England is given a fee status. It decides two things: how much tuition you are charged, and whether you can get government student finance.

Home fee status means the university can only charge you up to the government’s fee limit. For 2026/27, the Department for Education’s fee announcement sets the maximum at:

• £9,790 for a standard full-time undergraduate course at a provider with a Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) award and an access and participation plan
• £11,750 for a full-time accelerated degree
• £7,335 for a part-time course
• £6,350 for a standard full-time course at a provider without both a TEF award and an access and participation plan

For 2027/28 the same announcement sets the standard full-time cap at £10,050.

International (or “overseas”) fee status means that cap does not apply. Universities set these fees themselves, and for many courses they are far higher. Just as importantly, international students cannot get a Student Finance England tuition fee loan or maintenance loan.

The legal hinge is regulation 4 of the Education (Fees and Awards) (England) Regulations 2007. It makes it lawful for institutions to charge higher fees to anyone who does not fall within one of the categories listed in Schedule 1. Note the wording. The regulation permits higher fees; it does not require them. That difference matters later, when we look at asylum seekers.

The undergraduate tuition fee cap in England

Maximum fee for a standard full-time course at a provider with a TEF award and an access and participation plan

Show the data as a table

The undergraduate tuition fee cap in England

Category	Value
2017/18	£9,250
2024/25	£9,250
2025/26	£9,535
2026/27	£9,790
2027/28	£10,050

Who decides your fee status, and who decides student finance?

Two separate bodies make two separate decisions, under two separate sets of rules.

Your university or college decides your fee status. It applies the Education (Fees and Awards) (England) Regulations 2007. UKCISA’s guidance, Know the basics for HE England, stresses that each institution assesses status for itself. If you apply to several universities, each one decides separately.

Student Finance England decides whether you can borrow. It applies the Education (Student Support) Regulations 2011, and the Student Loans Company publishes detailed assessing eligibility guidance for 2026/27. That guidance says plainly that the regulations are the legal basis and prevail over the guidance if the two differ.

The two sets of categories closely mirror each other, so the answers usually match. They do not always, and the timing rules differ slightly. So it is worth checking both, in writing, as early as possible. Our article on refugees in higher education explains why it pays to ask for a fee status answer early in the application year.

Two dates you need to know

The regulations test your status on specific dates, and they are not always the day you walk into your first lecture.

• The course start date. For most courses, this is the day the first term of the first academic year begins. The protection-based categories (refugees, humanitarian protection and the others below) are tested on this date.
• The first day of the first academic year. This is a fixed technical date. UKCISA’s definitions page explains that if your academic year starts between 1 August and 31 December, it counts as 1 September. Academic years that start between January and July count from 1 January, 1 April or 1 July. The long residence and settled categories measure their residence periods back from this date.

Which immigration statuses qualify for home fees and student finance in England?

The table below summarises the categories most relevant to people from refugee, asylum-seeking and forced-migrant backgrounds. It lists only what we could verify in the regulations and official guidance. Each category has further conditions, so treat this as a map for a conversation with an adviser, not a final answer.

Refugees and their families

A refugee, in the regulations, means a person recognised by the UK government as a refugee under the 1951 Refugee Convention. Paragraph 4 of Schedule 1 to the Fees Regulations requires you to be ordinarily resident in the UK and Islands without a break since recognition, and ordinarily resident in the UK on the course start date. The Student Support Regulations say the same but require residence in England on that date.

Family members qualify under tighter conditions. A spouse or civil partner must have been married to, or in a civil partnership with, the refugee on the date the asylum claim was made. A child or stepchild must have been the child of the refugee on that date, and under 18 on it. The Student Loans Company’s refugee and humanitarian protection guide explains that family members who arrived later must hold leave to enter or remain, or leave in line with the refugee.

Humanitarian protection

Humanitarian protection is a different status from refugee status, but paragraph 5 treats it almost identically for these purposes. There is no three-year residence requirement. The SLC’s 2026/27 guidance adds a practical point. If humanitarian protection has been renewed, you only need to show ordinary residence since the most recent grant.

Be careful with paperwork. The SLC’s refugee and humanitarian protection guide notes that “Discretionary Leave” granted on humanitarian reasons is not humanitarian protection. It is assessed under the long residence category instead, which has much stricter residence rules.

Section 67 leave and Calais leave

Section 67 of the Immigration Act 2016, often called the Dubs amendment, relocated unaccompanied asylum-seeking children from Europe to the UK. Children who were not granted refugee status or humanitarian protection could instead receive section 67 leave. Calais leave was granted to unaccompanied children transferred to the UK during the clearance of the Calais camp between October 2016 and July 2017, to be reunited with family. According to the SLC guidance, both groups, and dependent children with leave in line, can get full support. The section 67 category applies to students starting courses on or after 1 August 2019.

Young people in this group are often care leavers, which affects how their maintenance loan is calculated (see below). Our separate guide to the education rights of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children covers the years before university.

Afghan and Ukraine schemes

People granted leave under the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP) or the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS) can qualify, and so can their family members. The GOV.UK student finance guide for 2026/27 also lists the Afghanistan Response Route. There is a separate category for British nationals evacuated or assisted out of Afghanistan between August 2021 and early January 2022.

The Ukraine category covers the Homes for Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme, the Ukraine Family Scheme, the Ukraine Extension Scheme and the Ukraine Permission Extension Scheme. The SLC guidance confirms that people with this leave are eligible for home fees, the home fee cap and full student finance with no three-year residence requirement. It also notes that the Family Scheme closed on 19 February 2024 and the Extension Scheme on 4 February 2025. Leave granted under those schemes still counts.

What does “ordinarily resident” mean, and when is there no three-year rule?

“Ordinarily resident” is not defined in the regulations, and the courts have filled the gap. The SLC guidance summarises it as lawful, habitual and normal residence from choice and for a settled purpose, apart from temporary or occasional absences. UKCISA describes it in almost the same words. The Student Support Regulations add that a person is not ordinarily resident in a place unless they are living there lawfully.

For most people, the general rule is three years of ordinary residence in the UK and Islands (the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man) before the course starts. That is the rule for British citizens, and for people with settled status such as indefinite leave to remain.

Here is a point that trips people up. The GOV.UK student finance guide opens its “full support” section with the three-year condition. It then lists the Home Office statuses (refugee, humanitarian protection and so on) a few lines below. Read quickly, that can look as if refugees also need three years. The regulations themselves are clearer. The protection categories only require residence since the status was granted, and the SLC’s own guidance on Ukraine scheme holders says so explicitly. If someone tells a refugee to “come back in three years”, ask them to check paragraph 4 of Schedule 1.

Two other residence points are worth knowing:

• Temporary absences do not normally break ordinary residence. A short trip abroad is not the same as moving away.
• Being in England on the course start date matters. Student finance from Student Finance England is for students whose home is in England. The Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish funding bodies have their own rules.

Limited leave to remain and the long residence category

Many young people who arrived as children do not hold refugee status. Some have discretionary leave, some have leave based on private or family life, and some have another form of limited leave. For them, the main route in England is the long residence category in paragraph 13 of both sets of regulations.

To qualify, on the first day of the first academic year of the course you must have lived in the UK for at least:

• seven years, if you are under 18, or
• half your life or 20 years, if you are 18 or over.

You must also:

• be ordinarily resident in England on that date, and in the UK and Islands for the whole of the three years before it
• not have been living in the UK and Islands during those three years wholly or mainly to receive full-time education

That three-year period is where most cases succeed or fail. The SLC guidance is explicit that ordinary residence means lawful residence, and that the student must hold some form of Home Office leave throughout it. If you moved from one period of leave to another, the second application must have been made in time, before the first expired. A gap in leave means the student was not lawfully resident for that period and does not meet the requirement. UKCISA’s long residence factsheet also stresses that the residence must have been lawful.

A few more details from the SLC guidance:

• You must meet the criteria before the course begins. Meeting them part-way through the first year does not count, so timing your start date can matter.
• You can prove long residence with more than a passport stamp. School letters with attendance dates, GP letters, college records, council tax bills and payslips can all help. A visitor visa on its own is not proof that you entered on that date.
• Funding can stop if your leave does. For students starting from 2024/25, support ends after the academic year in which leave expires or is revoked, unless you can show new valid leave.

Worked examples

The three scenarios below are illustrative composites. They are not real students, and they simplify real cases. They show how the rules interact, not how any individual case will be decided.

What about asylum seekers?

This is the hardest position, and it is worth being precise about it.

Asylum seekers cannot get student finance in England. The SLC’s refugee guide says it directly: while an asylum application is pending, the applicant is an asylum seeker, and asylum seekers are not eligible for student finance. None of the Schedule 1 categories covers a pending claim.

Asylum seekers are not a home fee category either. Most universities therefore charge international fees. But remember regulation 4. It makes higher fees lawful, not compulsory. Student Action for Refugees (STAR) puts it plainly in its access to university FAQs. People seeking asylum are generally charged international fees, but universities can set their own fee rates. Some have a policy of charging asylum seekers home fees.

Scholarships are the main route. STAR’s scholarship list says more than 80 universities offer scholarships, bursaries and fee waivers for people who have claimed asylum in the UK. Some are open to people still waiting for a decision, and others to people with refugee status or limited leave. Each has its own criteria and deadlines. Our guide to sanctuary scholarships in the UK goes through how to find and compare them.

A caution on money. Home Office asylum support is means-tested. Guidance from the Student Awards Agency Scotland (SAAS discretionary fund guidance) warns about living-cost payments from elsewhere. If someone on asylum support receives them, the Home Office may treat them as no longer destitute, which can affect their support and accommodation. That document was written for Scottish institutions, but the underlying point applies across the UK. Before accepting a bursary that includes cash for living costs, get advice on how it interacts with asylum support.

What happens if your status changes during the course?

Asylum decisions often arrive part-way through a course. The student support rules have a mechanism for this, called an event.

The SLC’s 2026/27 eligibility guidance lists being recognised as a refugee, or being granted humanitarian protection, as in-year events. So is a spouse, civil partner, parent or step-parent being granted either status. So are grants of section 67 leave, Calais leave, stateless leave, ARAP, ACRS, Afghanistan Response Route or Ukraine scheme leave. Since 2023/24, a student who qualifies through one of these events is treated as having been lawfully resident on the course start date, even if they had no leave that day. They must still meet the other parts of ordinary residence.

What you can get depends on when the event happens. The SLC guide for refugees and humanitarian protection sets it out like this:

The deadline moves too. Normally you must apply within nine months of the first day of the academic year. When an event happens, the SLC guidance says the nine months run from the date of the event. Student Finance England can also extend a deadline where appropriate.

On the fee side, regulation 4 of the Fees Regulations tests the protection categories on the course start date for the first year, and on the first day of each later year. In practice, a student granted refugee status during the first year should be assessed as a home student for later years. Whether a university also reduces the fee for the current year is up to that institution, so ask.

When leave runs out mid-course

This is becoming more relevant. In March 2026 the Home Office announced that adults and accompanied children who claim asylum on or after 2 March 2026 will get 30 months of refugee protection if granted, not five years, with reviews. Unaccompanied children will continue to receive five years’ leave. A 30-month grant is shorter than most degrees, so more students will see their leave come up for renewal while they study.

The rules allow for this, but you have to act:

• The Fees Regulations treat a person whose leave has expired as still in their category for the rest of the course if further leave has been granted, or if the relevant immigration rule on applications for further leave applies.
• For student finance, the SLC guidance says support should not be withdrawn while the Home Office is reviewing a refugee or humanitarian protection case, or considering an appeal. The student must provide evidence of that. The SLC refugee guide mentions an in-time application letter from the Home Office.

Apply to renew before your leave expires, and keep the Home Office acknowledgement. Missing the date can cause problems with more than student finance.

How much can you borrow in 2026/27?

If you qualify for full support, you can borrow a tuition fee loan up to the fee your course charges, within the cap. You can also get a maintenance loan for living costs. The tuition fee loan does not depend on household income. The maintenance loan does, above a household income of £25,000.

Maximum maintenance loan by living situation, 2026/27

Maximum and minimum loan for full-time undergraduates in England who are not entitled to benefits

• Maximum loan
• Minimum loan

• Living with parents£9,118vs £4,013
• Away from home, outside London£10,830vs £5,048
• Studying overseas as part of a UK course£12,403vs £5,996
• Away from home, in London£14,135vs £7,039

Show the data as a table

Maximum maintenance loan by living situation, 2026/27

Category	Maximum loan	Minimum loan
Living with parents	£9,118	£4,013
Away from home, outside London	£10,830	£5,048
Studying overseas as part of a UK course	£12,403	£5,996
Away from home, in London	£14,135	£7,039

Two rules in the SFE assessment guide matter a great deal for young refugees.

Independent student status. Normally a young student’s maintenance loan is means-tested on their parents’ income. You can be assessed as independent in several situations. These include if your parents cannot be traced, or it is not practical to contact them. They also include if your parents live outside the UK, Gibraltar and the European Union and an income assessment would put them in jeopardy, or it is not reasonably practical for them to send money. The guide notes this last situation may apply to refugees.

Care leavers. You also count as independent, subject to exceptions, if you were looked after by a local authority for any three-month period ending on or after your 16th birthday and before the course began. The guide adds that a care leaver’s household income is not used to calculate the maintenance loan, so they can borrow the maximum. Many young people who arrived unaccompanied will fall into this group, and it is worth saying so on the application with evidence from the local authority.

Where Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland differ

Education is devolved, and each nation has its own rules. UKCISA’s advice is to look only at the pages for the part of the UK where you will study. Student finance also generally follows where you normally live, not where you study. In brief:

Hong Kong BN(O) visa holders

This is where the nations differ most sharply. England has no specific category for BN(O) visa holders. In its March 2024 response to a parliamentary petition, the Department for Education said they qualify for home fees once they have settled status. They must also have been ordinarily and lawfully resident in the UK and Islands for the three years before the course. The department said this matches how most people on five-year routes to settlement are treated. Scotland’s 2023 rule change gives home fee status to people with any form of leave after three years’ residence, so in principle BN(O) visa holders can qualify there sooner.

What to do: a practical checklist

A few habits prevent most problems:

1. Keep your immigration history in one place. That means grant letters, eVisa records, renewal applications and Home Office acknowledgements. Long residence and mid-course renewals both depend on proving there were no gaps.
2. Name your category. “I have refugee status under paragraph 4” gets a faster, more accurate answer than “I’m not sure what I count as”.
3. Apply for student finance even if your status is changing. If a decision arrives mid-year, tell Student Finance England and your university straight away, and apply within nine months of the grant.
4. Diary your leave expiry date. Apply to renew in time, especially if you were granted 30-month protection.
5. Look at the whole route. Many students come in through a foundation year or an Access to HE Diploma. Our guide to Access to HE and foundation years explains how funding works for those. If your qualifications are from abroad, see recognising overseas qualifications.

Who to contact for what

If you support young people professionally, our practical guide for professionals sets these steps in the wider context of getting a young refugee into education.

Where Bridging the Future fits

We are not fee status advisers, and we will always point a student to UKCISA, Student Finance England or their university for a decision on their case. What we do is help young people aged 16 to 22 get ready for the moment those decisions matter.

Our free STEM and English summer school has run at UCL since 2018. In 2025 we received 315 applications for 30 places, and Summer School 2027 applications will be announced on our application page. Our online mentoring programme has supported 32 students with more than 250 hours of volunteer time since 2022. It restarts in October 2026, and mentors help with exactly the paperwork-heavy parts of the year: personal statements, university applications and interviews. If you have been through a UK university application yourself, you could volunteer as a mentor.

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Figures compiled in September 2026 from the sources listed below. Rules and figures change — if you spot something out of date, please tell us. This article is general information, not legal, immigration or financial advice; check individual circumstances with UKCISA, the university and Student Finance England.

Keep reading

• Sanctuary scholarships in the UK: how to find, compare and apply for university scholarships for people seeking sanctuary.
• From 1% to 15%: why refugee enrolment in higher education is so low, and what the UK route involves.
• Access to HE Diplomas and foundation years: the bridging routes into a degree.
• Supporting a young refugee into education: a practical guide for professionals.